I am feeling blue...and red (2016)

Feel the colour, transverse its shades on the skin, dress the colour in its most gentle intimacy. “I’m feeling blue… and red” proposes a haptic experience of colour perception through a wearable device in a format of a glove.

In the presented project the glove is a support for colour translation. Colour that vibrates on the skin through the enhancement of the haptic perception via a colour sensor embedded on the fingers. Color pixel, colour that will generate a pattern of vibrations for each one of the motors embedded on the device and in contact with the skin. The design of the fingers is modified in order to establish another relation and deconstruct the way we use to touch. The sensation of strangeness that demands a focus, a concentration towards the region where the sensor is located.

Hybrid fingers between the organic and the inorganic, mixing the neural haptic circuits with the circuits embroidered with conductive threads, a skin circuit.

The wearable device was developed during the Art and Science Residency Alt+, initiated by the Medialab/UFG.

The residency had the participation of two computer scientists, Ronaldo Martins da Costa and Gustavo Laureano, the artist Ricardo O’Nascimento and the collaboration and support of the media Lab/UFG staff curated by Izabel Goudart and Cleomar Rocha.

Batuque

“Batuque” is a performance inspired by the Afro-Brazilian faith Candomblé. In this belief the entities are represented by people wearing specific clothing as part of a ritual that transposes them into another dimension. The name “Batuque” is used to refer to the religion, especially before the 19th century and is also the Brazilian word associated with percussion instruments and with african roots. In this performance the wearer becomes a sort of creature or entity that has an extra sense. Its skin senses the surround sound and reacts to it accordingly, with movements and vibrations. The garment uses sensor technology and digital prototyping techniques, such as 3d printing and laser engraving, to create a magical and enjoyable experience.

The multiple personalities of Jessica Nussbaum

This performance was the result of 3 days experimentation at the Transhumanism performance lab during the Music Tech Festival 2016 in Berlin. We created two sound reactive garments with capacitive sensors on the spine that triggered sounds inspired on the unique architecture that we were immerse. The sounds were broadcasted on small speakers embedded on the cloth.

Hybrid of insect and human, the performers move on the space interacting with one another and with the audience.

Be Loved

" Be Loved " is a transdisciplinary project created by Iria do Castelo & Ricardo O'Nascimento supported by MAC Contemporary Art Museum of A Coruña (Spain).

It is possible in collaboration with Niffo Galerie Rotterdam.

" Be Loved " is a project that seeks the boundaries of love, the borders of attraction in bodies. Love as a way to be more free being tied by someone.

The piece is composed of two twin wearable pieces that interact with each other. The braids connect the twins turning it into an active audio performance that shows a complex mix of anxiety and relax feelings.

On 31 october 2015 while South Explorer, a cultural event in Rotterdam, we featured this collaborative piece titled "Be Loved". It was performed by us using new media interactive processes and elements of our personal discourse.

photos: Lidia Vevi

Wearable Facade

Wearable Facade (2015) is an apparel that captures the colours and shapes of its environment through micro­cameras, and translates them into computer ­generated patterns displayed on its LED surface. Walking through the city, the Wearable Facade can reflect surrounding architecture, or “replay” patterns recorded in different areas of Brussels or Europe.

The architecture is the source of the information that composes the pattern and it is at the same time vehicle of connection between itself and the garment, once the same pattern that is displayed on the garment is also displayed on the facade.

Wearable Facade takes its inspiration from the increasingly numerous "media facades" that appear in cities across the globe; those LED­ covered buildings that turn architecture into screens. Wearable Facade appropriates the idea, and applies it to fashion design, into a smaller­ scaled, more mobile and accessible device.

Wearable Facade is produced by Urbane Künste Ruhr in the framework of Connecting Cities. Connecting Cities Network is a European and worldwide expanding network initiated by Public Art Lab Berlin, aiming to build up a connected infrastructure of media facades, urban screens and projection sites to circulate artistic and social content.

Tropical Disturbance Remix

TDR is an interactive garment that enables the wearer to remix a song by wearing it in various ways. The garment is connected to a tailor made smart phone application. Each magnetic button, when closed, trigger a track of the song. Depending on how you decide to wear you will listen a diferent remix of the music. This piece is part of the artist's investigation of new forms wearable interfaces for digital music.

Wearable Narratives

"Wearable narrative" is a audio wearable platform for story telling. It is a cape that has embedded in its hood flexible speakers. It also has 4 buttons that acts as a trigger for diferent sound files. Each button triggers a diferent part of a story that can be heard inside the hood. Combinations of closed and opened buttons are possible. This piece allows the wearer to explore a story in a non linear way and opens up new possibilities for story telling.

Year: 2014

Featuring story by Scarlet Erika Parra.

Multipodiforme Verde

Tela, ventilador y Arduino160 x 200cm2014

This interactive sculpture is part of "tropical disturbance". The sculpture reacts to the ambient by blowing wind and therefore moving the ribbons on the presence of sound.

multipodiforme verde

Do you dream about me?

Feather, ventilator, third hand and electronics.20 X 5 X 6cm2012.

Do you dream about me?

Do you Dream about me?Mixed Media. Feather, third hand, fan and electronic parts. 2011.

Multipodiforme Coruña

The "Multipodiformes" is a series of interactive sculptures that suggest an imaginary superorder of soft-bodies creatures. Those creatures displays an organic and flexible shape. As living beings they can also interact with the environment.

"Multipodiforme Coruña" represents a 4 heart creature that beats and expel wind when something approaches. The creature's reaction can be visualised by the movement of its tentacles.

This work deals with the idea of an artwork that not only exist but also change itself according to the viewer. Each person is able to have an unique and personal experience with it.

Feather Tales II

Secrets tempt their keepers with disclosure, but also make them constantly live with the fear of the consequences of revelation. Whereas for us outsiders, secrets are only interesting if we are aware that they exist. Unaware of their existence, we are careless, ignorant, and unbothered. Once we recognize an undisclosed affair, we are driven towards it with inquisitiveness. Revealing the secret might end up with disappointment, whereas a well-kept secret that vaguely shows itself remains intriguing and might create mindful awareness.

Feather Tales II is a responsive environment that arose from an imaginary scenario in which a secretive dialogue between electromagnetic waves and their material surroundings become vaguely visible, thus captivating. The surfaces in the exhibition space that are covered with feathers become hypersensitive to waves emitted by mobile communication devices. Whenever electronic signals haunt the space the surfaces start to show involuntary reactions. These reactions are presented in the form of horripilation, the involuntary erection of feathers also known as 'goose bumps'. Goose bumps are physiological phenomena that can occur in animals in a variety of emotional states, such as irritation, fear, admiration, and sexual desire. Thus, in Feather Tales the existence of a secret dialogue becomes visible to the visitors, whereas the causing emotions remain unknown.

The installation is composed of 200 reactive units that hold 1000 white ostrich feathers distributed in the Sala de Columnas of LABoral. Each reactive unit includes an electromagnetic signal sensor, a processor, a servo motor and movable feathers. When a signal is detected in the proximity of a sensor, the feathers start to flicker and move accordingly. The units are sensitive to a variety of frequencies ranging from mobile telephony to WiFi and bluetooth. Hence, the visitors are provided with the chance to interact with the environment using their personal devices.

The installation is modular and can be adapted to any space and size.

Feather tales II - making of promo

Paparazzi Lover

Paparazzi lover” helps the wearer to remind photographers who the real star is. In a sea of flash lights, the interactive technology in the dress senses when the crowd needs a gentle nudge to properly direct their attention. In response to the photography, the 62 embedded led lights turn on to catch the eyes of everyone. The dress was created in collaboration with fashion designer Anbasja Blanken.

s-Bojagi

Bojagi is an unique form of korean textile art. It is a traditional wrapping cloth made by patching together scraps and turning them into useful wrappers. Bojagi can be used to wrap almost everything and there are several techniques to use it.

The S Bojagi is a personal interpretation of this korean tradition. Through the use of sensor technology and flexible circuitry techniques the Sonic Bogaji triggers, transforms and (re)creates the sonic landscape of Seoul, the capital of Korea.

I spend one month collecting sounds from many different places in Seoul, from traditional dance presentations to street pop culture. Those sounds are triggered and mixed together depending on how the S Bogaji is manipulated.

This piece is presented as a performance where the bojagi is used to wrap different objects. Each object is wrapped using a different technique which creates a unique sonic experience.

e-Ansã

Concept

The name e-ansã comes from the name of an Orisha: Iansan. Iansan is a spirit entity of the Afro-Brazilian religious faith Candomblé. This entity is connected with the winds, hurricanes and tempests and has the power to control those natural forces.

The dress is composed by an aluminium structure where the fans are placed. Covering this structure there are hundresds or ribbons in red, orange and yellow in reference of the colors of Iansan.

Those ribbons are called "fitinhas do Senhor do Bonfim" and are used in a religious context in Brazil, mostly in the state of Bahia.

They appeared in 1809 as a sort of souvenir from the church. It was worn around the neck like a necklace, at the same place where saints and medallions were hung.

The ribbons worked as a type of currency: upon making good on a promise, the faithful use to give to the church a photo or a small sculpture of beeswax representing the part of the body which was cured with the help of the saint. As a souvenir of the favor, these ribbons would be acquired, symbolizing the church itself.

Nowadays it is common that people worn around the wrist with 3 knots that correspond to 3 wishes. These wrist ribbons come in all colors - each for a different saint - and bear the words "Lembrança do Senhor do Bonfim da Bahia" meaning "In remembrance of the Savior of Bahia." (Senhor do Bonfim refers to Jesus, "Our Lord of a Good End"). Measuring 47 cm/ 18.5 in, which is the length of the right arm on a Christ statue in Bahia's Senhor do Bonfim church, the ribbon is tied around the left wrist in three knots, each one signifying a wish. Once the string falls off naturally, your wishes will be granted.

No one knows when the transition occurred from the old style ribbon to the new one (worn around the wrist), although the new ribbon was popularized by the street vendors of Salvador around the 1960′s, when it was also adopted by the Bahian hippies as part of their style of dressing.

Religion, invisible forces, tradition and technology are mixed together in this dress that intends to aware people of electronic pollution especially with the increasing use of cell phones. Maybe the modern Iansan could also control the electronic fields.

Technology

The dress is composed of 110 computer fans, 4 antennas, batteries and a microcontroller. The detection system constantly checks and verifies whether there are any waves in the atmosphere that are put out by mobile phones. This live information is sent to a microcomputer. The microcomputer activates the fans that creates wind and blows this through the dress.

TK-730

What happens when senses are cross-wired in the brain? Can data convey different meaningswhen interpreted as a purely visual object? What other ways of interpreting a single piece of data could there be? This is what the TK Series attempts to explore.

The first machine in our series is the TK 730. This machine converts a piece of information, in this case words, into a knitted code that can be worn. It decodes the typed word and re-encodes it into the pattern of the knitwork in a sort of encryption procedure.

Our starting point for this encoding were the words text and textile. These words share the sameorigin - both come from the Latin texere, which means "to weave". From this premise one can observe many things in common between them. A knitted textile work is comprised of lines and points, just like a piece of text. When you tell a story, you follow a thread in a similar way to a thread in a knitted work. It should be continuous and with no breaks. The story knitted by the TK 730 is one you can read, see, touch and wear

TK 730

What happens when senses are cross-wired in the brain? Can data convey different meaningswhen interpreted as a purely visual object? What other ways of interpreting a single piece of data could there be? This is what the TK Series attempts to explore.

The first machine in our series is the TK 730. This machine converts a piece of information, in this case words, into a knitted code that can be worn. It decodes the typed word and re-encodes it into the pattern of the knitwork in a sort of encryption procedure.

Our starting point for this encoding were the words text and textile. These words share the sameorigin - both come from the Latin texere, which means "to weave". From this premise one can observe many things in common between them. A knitted textile work is comprised of lines and points, just like a piece of text. When you tell a story, you follow a thread in a similar way to a thread in a knitted work. It should be continuous and with no breaks. The story knitted by the TK 730 is one you can read, see, touch and wear

Adaptação

One thing that keep happening with me is that when I travel I use to forget the electricity plug adaptor and I end up having to buy a new one or to "borrow" from someone. From all those souvenirs I made small sculptures. Each sculpture is composed by parts of the same set of adaptors and should be assembled following instructions given by the artist.

Those adaptors sculptures are also a tribute to GAMBIARRA. I grew up surrounded by gambiarras in my house. Electric improvisations to make things work a bit more. The lack of electricity plugs stimulated the usage of many adaptors to turn on as many electronic devices as possible. It was always exiting to see if it was going to work at all. The word “gambiarra”, in portuguese is related with the idea of improvisation. It is the act of building an improvised solution. The practice of gambiarra always involve an alternative intervention, which can be defined as a re appropriation of the material: a way to use or make an object, through customisation, improvisation, adjustment and transformation.

Mixed media. Various sizes depending on the configuration.

Year: 2012

Pinyin

Pinyin is a performance where a dancer wear an interactive dress and explore the sound and music of the Taiwanese Aboriginal Communities. Pinyin means spelled sound in chinese.

The interactive dress has embedded 7 touch sensors and 4 speakers. When the wearer touches the sensible points a music from an specific aboriginal community is broadcasted on the speakers. When two points are touched at the same time the sounds are mixed, as if the communities sing together.

Mind Taipei

During a walking inTaipei city one can perceive many sounds, some of them very unfamiliar for a western person. Fragments of conversations, random music, sound of the impressive number of scooters...

I collected those sounds during my residency at taipei artist village and created an urban sound landscape with them. However instead of a pure sound piece I decided to design a head piece in order to place the sounds physically near to my mind. It is a representation of what i heard and what was sticked into my mind.

"mind taipei" is a headpiece equipped with 69 speakers that broadcasts a sonic landscape of Taipei. The piece is fed by a 9v battery and a mp3 player. all the electronics are embedded in the hat.

Mind taipei (2011)

During a walking inTaipei city one can perceive many sounds, some of them very unfamiliar for a western person. Fragments of conversations, random music, sound of the impressive number of scooters...

I collected those sounds during my residency at taipei artist village and created an urban sound landscape with them. However instead of a pure sound piece I decided to design a head piece in order to place the sounds physically near to my mind. It is a representation of what i heard and what was sticked into my mind.

"mind taipei" is a headpiece equipped with 69 speakers that broadcasts a sonic landscape of Taipei. The piece is fed by a 9v battery and a mp3 player. all the electronics are embedded in the hat.

You can hear the Sound Landscape piece bellow.

Parangonet 1.0 - Sonic Dimension

"Parangonet 1.0: sonic dimension" is composed by 2 wearable sculptures that, through its movement in space, create and broadcast sound samples that reefer to the brazilian artistic movement called "Tropicalismo" (tropicalism in english). Each garment is able to trigger and modify a different sound input. When performed together they create a sonic atmosphere that represents the cultural agglutination, presented on the sound atmosphere, proposed by the tropicalists, transposing its fundamental concept to our days.

This piece is strongly inspired by the work "Parangolé" from the brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica and aims to make a review of this artwork and bring its concept to our time, using technology to raise new poetic possibilities.

Concept

The "parangonet 1.0:sonic dimension" is part of a serie of "parangolés" sensed by technology. After sensed the "parangolés" are transformed into what I call "parangonet" in a reference to its new network collaborative features.

The "Parangonets 1.0: sonic dimension" is the first one of a series of wearable garments that form a net of collaborative wearable sculptures that changes and interferes in the environment, creating new languages and experiences.

A monitored dialogue between the "Parangonet 1.0: sonic dimension" creates a transcultural dialog constructed between different worlds and backgrounds.

The "Parangonet 1.0 sonic dimension" performance represents and displays the result of measured information flowing in the emptiness. Together, they form a sonic environment embracing the Brazilian culture but also the culture from where it is performed.

What the "Parangonet 1.0: sonic dimension" allows is the access to a new special, temporal and sonic perception, where the receptor can act as he likes, realizing movements, actions, gestures, performances and noises and doing so, he/she is able to create new syntaxes in the free space just wearing and completing the piece.

This piece breaks the routine and present new elements trough plenty possibilities on the syntax level and doing so it allows a enhanced perception of the objects, life, opening space in daily life for the raise of creative acts.

This piece was conceived in collaboration with Jader Scalzaretto.

Authority

Authority is an interactive video installation where you face a policeman in the same proportion that you are thus; you are in the same level of power.

The policeman starts to yell at you and to make lots of questions using its pseudo power. If you do not say anything the policeman becomes bigger and bigger.

This will continues until you start to yell back. According the volume of your voice the policeman's size starts to diminish. In this way the power relation is equalized by the decibels.

Concept

"...in a society such as ours...there are manifold relations of power that permeate, characterize and constitute the social body, and these relations of power cannot themselves be established, consolidated nor implemented without the production, accumulation, circulation and functioning of a discourse."

Michel Foucault

According Michel Foucault exists a wire of power among us. The power side changes constantly and every moment we can notice it.

Foucault decentralizes power and argues that it does not operate through class but through mechanisms and strategies. Foucault says that power should be understood in terms of its operations, techniques and tools ("What does power do?") rather than in terms of simply what it is. Power is not owned by the state, nor is it specific to any particular organization. It is a machinery that no one owns. Its application points are multiple, dispersed throughout all social institutions. Power, according to Foucault must be analyzed as something that circulates, or rather as something which only functions in the form of a chain. It is never localized here or there, never in anybody's hands, never appropriated as a commodity or piece of wealth. Power is employed and exercised through a net-like organization… Individuals are the vehicles of power, not its points of application

Therefore, when analyzing power, one should examine the diversity of the points of applications of power rather than a deep structure. Foucault insists that power is typically present throughout the institutions of modernity, in all kinds of administrative contexts (1). Techniques and strategies of power are always present. They originally develop within institutions like armies, prisons, factories but their influence seeps into the texture of social life.

The authority project comes from an experience that I had on the beginning of 2006. I was in the immigration department of an European country trying to figure out what should I do in order to have a document. My first thought was that i should talk to the policeman that was in front of the door and ask him for information. When I went to his direction he started to yell at me in his mother tongue. I was astonished, because I was not able to say anything to him. So, my reaction was start to yelling in Portuguese (my mother tongue) at him. Afterwards, he was more calm and we could talk normally.

I think this experience is deeply related with Foucault's idea of power, and how it is spread and can be suddenly changed.

(1) Foucault, Michael. "Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison". Vintage Books. New York, 1995.

Unseen Movie

A normal adult closes his eyes 24 times per minute.

A blink lasts only few milliseconds and this time may change according the individual mood. Under fatigue one can blink up to 40 times per minute.

Recent studies indicate that the brain "shut down" the eye in about 50 milliseconds before every single blink. This would be a way to save the eye, because during the blink action it can not delivery any visual information to the brain.

Adding the "shut down" time to the 24 blinks per minute we can conclude that one has 1,2 seconds of blindness per minute which, in a 70 years life, is approximately 21 days with no vision.

Unseen movie is an installation that aims to visualize what was unseen and broadcast those moments of blindness.

In front a monitor the user watches a movie. A camera on the top of the monitor is connected to a computer that tracks the eyes and detects when they blink. Every time the user blinks the image that appears at that moment is broadcasted in another monitor in real time.

This installation makes possible that other people watch what was missed. The unseen movie.

Feather Tales

In the last two decades, our mobile phones and the infrastructure of electromagnetic waves have become our primary link to the social world that we construct for ourselves. We got accustomed to having a seamless connection to our acquaintances, a flexibility of scheduling and a freedom from punctuality. (A. Townsend) We have created a strong dependency on our mobile devices and the Hertzian space of electromagnetic waves.

Recently, mobile phones are being replaced by location- and context-aware & sensor-equipped smart-phones with computational power and wireless internet connection. Our dependency on such devices and the Hertzian space is drastically increasing as well. Today, we are not only depending on our devices for maintaining social relations, but also delegating our internal physiological, psychological and cognitive processes (such as orientation, memory, sensation or self-disclosure) to them. Our devices are keeping track of our geographical location for us, giving us directions and controlling our orientation. They are undertaking parts of our memory through reminder applications. They are checking the weather for us even when we are physically exposed to it ourselves, hearing for us through their microphones, or seeing for us through their cameras.

Our past work Taiknam Hat deals with the abovementioned transformation of contemporary individuals by similarly externalizing a very internal process: the process of horripilation. The hat unites with the user through being worn (yet it is still an exterior entity) and undertakes this internal process for the user. It detects electromagnetic waves, which are otherwise undetectable to the plain body. It processes the detected information for the user and expresses irritation through the flickering movements of feathers. As a result, the user of the Taiknam Hat becomes the owner of an expression, in the process of which he or she has no influence or control on.

We continue with this work in progress our interest regarding externalizing the internal process of detection-irritation-horripilation through soft interfaces in focus. Our research explorers techniques, materials and aesthetic possibilities to signal irritation. How can "design" signal the correct message of irritation to others? How can we make use of new materials and technologies in this sense?

Rambler

Rambler, developed by Ricardo O"Nascimento and Tiago Martins, is a critical take on near obsessive microblogging habits and elicits reflection on the personal nature, amount and usefulness of information generated everyday through blogging and social platforms such as Twitter.

Rambler is a critical embodiment of the (until now) metaphorical notion of blogging every step you take. It aims to bring the practice of microblogging to one of many possible extremes, turning it into an automatic, thoughtless act of diffusing large amounts of slightly ambiguous, repetitive and arguably useless personal information. Manifesting itself physically as a pair of sneakers, it mirrors the trendy, easy going philosophy of the most popular microblogging platform of the moment: Twitter.

This project presents a pair of trendy sneakers that take microblogging one step further, by literally posting your steps on a Twitter account. Messages are comprised of repetitions of the word "tap" and the period punctuation mark, symbolizing the wearer's steps and time in between these, respectively.

A sensor on the sole of the shoe measures the amount of pressure exerted by the wearer's foot. This information is read and processed by a microcontroller, which transmits it wirelessly via a Bluetooth module with a Serial Port Profile. This three part setup is powered by two AAA batteries lasting up to 9 hours of continuous usage. Pressure sensor, microcontroller, Bluetooth module and batteries are all embedded into the sneaker. Their combined weight isn't noticeable in comparison with the sneaker's own weight and their location is chosen as not to cause discomfort to the wearer.

The name Rambler was chosen for the double meaning of the word "ramble". On one hand, to ramble is to take a pleasant, even aimless walk; on the other, it is also to digress when talking, losing clarity or even turning aside of the main subject. While the first meaning relates to the usage of the Rambler sneakers as footwear (literally as shoes for rambling), the second meaning relates to the desultory usage of microblogging platforms – with a focus on Twitter – into which this project elicits a critical view.

Follow @ramblershoes on Twitter.

Year: 2010

Plantas Parlantes

After an initial investigation on local water planning in a context so rich and fragile as the Dutch one, the group discussed the creation of a system capable of establishing relations between the human world and the vegetable world, building a sonic sculpture formed by plants and electronic circuits where the contact between man and plant triggers sounds and poetically embodies this relationship.

The installation consists of several elements: controlling the flow of water in a closed circuit with different levels, inspired by the ingenious water management in the Netherlands; the use of vegetables pointing the possibility of food self supply; the connection between plants through wires that capture the energy activity of bacteria and roots; the energy exchange between plants and spectator, perceptible communication through audio signals caused by the interaction of the viewer. The installation functions as a vegetable electro-acoustic instrument.

Our intention is not only noted the existence of other energy sources, also to place the human being at a level of communication with the natural world around him. Is it possible to use technology to minimise the separation of the natural environment that we suffer today?

Year: 2010

with: Gilberto Esparza, Javier Busturia and Jigni Wang

Taiknam Hat

Taiknam Hat is a kinetic head-wear that reacts and animates in accordance with the changes in its surrounding medium wave radio signals.

The intention of the project is to materialize the invisible and to contribute to the awareness of the increasing electromagnetic radiation. The co-existence of all electromagnetic waves that radiate from physical devices (light, microwaves, x-rays, and TV and radio transmissions) creates an invisible landscape that interacts with physical space and its inhabitants. It has long been noted that the expansion of uses for electrical, electronic and radio devices is converting this landscape into a new form of pollution which is known as electrosmog.

Medium waves are generated by radio transmitters which are ranked among the most powerful sources that cause electrosmog. Although the electrosmog is not visible to us, it is claimed to cause in biological effects on humans and animals and the topic has also been a focus for various projects in the field of art and design.

This project is an alternative attempt to materialize the immaterial space of radio waves by emulating horripilation, an automatic instinctive reaction of living creatures to sources of irritation and stress. Horripilation, which can be defined as the erection of hairs or feathers in various species under certain emotional conditions (better known as goose bumps in human body), is a temporary and local change in the skin and claimed to be evolved as a part of the "fight-or-flight" reaction by some biologists. Numerous experiments on various animals report that animals respond to exterior threats with a reflex of their nervous system which results in either the animal fighting (anger emotion) or fleeing (fear emotion) and horripilation can be clearly observed in the moment of both reactions. Other than the primary emotions of anger and fear, in some animals, especially in birds, horripilation is also attached to another instinct, the instinct of "self-display/signaling".

Taiknam Hat aims to utilize the biological facts regarding the causes and properties of horripilation in birds as a metaphor, in order to express our bodies' irritation towards electromagnetic radiation as well as to create a visual and tactile signage of their existence for other people. The final idea of creating a kinetic headwear which provides a contemporary interpretation of the historical feather hats is moreover encouraged by the scientific findings that show that feathers themselves may act as microwave sensors. Therefore, the headwear employs a number of actual feathers. The feathers hat are mounted on the Taiknam Hat become activated and move according to the existence and amount of medium waves at a certain location while the person who wears the hat strolls through space.

Technology

The system is composed of movable feathers movements of which are operated by a motor that is activated by a medium wave detection system. The detection system constantly checks and verifies whether there are any medium waves in the environment. This live information is sent to a microcomputer. The microcomputer activates the motor and the mechanical structure that is holding the feathers and results in the kinetic behaviour of the feathers.

New(s)wor(l)d

This project proposes the use of news produced by different online information via RSS. These data are transformed by computer coding processe and creates color, movement, sound and graphic relief patterns – one singular environment portraying a chaotic digital imaginary scenery of the world in a subjective way. Our Era, our opinion and the atmosphere brought up-to-date in a real time noospheric vision.

Concept

While the frantic development of Human Being affirms ever-increasing speeds of information processing, the evolution of means of communication follow the rhythm and often push thoughts to inconceivable directions. The cognitive development of perception suggests a perpetual motion meta-language in which the re-reading of senses, by themselves, happens at each quantum interval period. Charged with news every time the eyelids open, the brain adapts itself in face of this metamorphic reality by creating evolution and survival alternatives. The organization of processes of specific knowledge appropriation passes necessarily through learning and naming the ecosystem featured as the present reality. Due to these considerations and taking evident and trivial alternatives on the internet cybernetic environment, this work-study proposes the affirmation of RSS technology, taking it to the extreme of artistic creation.

Chance, open work, art and food

Solid food is not the exclusive source of life of the Human Being. Along the historical path of our species, less dense forms of food were clear and of great use on an everyday basis. Without extensive consideration of this fact it is worth to focus on information as food in a non-metaphorical sense.

The human brain is always about to incorporate the "now" in a full and genuine way but never reaches this purpose. Nothing wrong about that because it continues searching this utopia, what leads it to come across other type of discoveries, different from the "goal" but sufficiently interesting. One of man's selective artifices, culminating in something with the RSS characteristics, suggests a very clear purpose: to make relevant information available in real time to specific individuals in specific circumstances so that they can use them as food.

RSS primary function is to link sites of same quality or interest, building specific networks and fulfilling its purpose in the minds of every individual who uses this technology. The proposed open work intends to take away from this final interpreter the act of judging. Starting from certain directives and specifications, this software will then transform casual variables into images that can be appreciated and judged by the interpreter. Open work that takes art to the extreme since, in an ideal situation, it leads the creation to endure itself by portraying the cosmos captured by human mechanisms. To endure itself by creating images dictated by chance and linked to the spectators' wills and desires and to their total freedom of interactive input.

Spectators can add inputs at any time as long as the site makes RSS information available and the bandwidth used allows this information traffic. The user see final images projected and dispose of a field to register a new site on the mechanism.

Each rss feed creates a ball that spreads light and sound according the information coming from the feed in real time. When a feed finds a similar contend in other feed in the New(s)wor(l)d it creates a line connecting them. Everyone is able to insert or delete feeds in the system. For that there is a screen-based interface where you can interact and change the feeds.

Year: 2008

Code: Mar Canet and Travis Kirton

This work was possible due to Rumos Arte Cibernética by Instituto Cultural Itaú.

AUTRMX

AUTRMX is an experimental video edited using MAX/MSP and a normal cutting software. This project came out from my previous work called "Authority" where a policeman performs different moods while talking a nonsense text. During the movie he changes his mood from very calm and indifferent to angry and nervous. This film, as the previous installation "Authority", is a metaphor of Foucault's power theory in modern societies that is not fixed but in constant movement.

"...in a society such as ours...there are manifold relations of power that permeate, characterize and constitute the social body, and these relations of power cannot themselves be established, consolidated nor implemented without the production, accumulation, circulation and functioning of a discourse."

Michel Foucault

Action concept

In order to give the feeling of no understanding about what the policeman says we decided to make the policeman with no nationality. It means that anyone can feel this strange sensation independent of what mother tongue he has. Then, I decided to use some kind of Dadaist language like the examples we found in the works of Kurt Scwitters and Ernst Jandl.